Nest wants your thermostat to be a piece of art that you're proud to have on your walls. The Google-owned smart home company introduced three new color finishes for its smart thermostat at the Made by Google event in New York on Tuesday. The polished steel, brass and mirror black thermostats comprise the new Nest Artists Collection.

The collection is specifically inspired by modern industrial art. According to Jess Gunter, Nest's lead product marketer, the company was aiming for something "functionally and aesthetically beautiful." With the three new designs, you now have seven color choices if you want a Nest Learning Thermostat, including the traditional stainless model and the Architects Collection introduced in 2016, which includes copper, black and white finishes.

You can buy the thermostats with the new finishes starting Oct. 16 for the same $250 (£219) price. Functionally, the Artists Collection is the same third-generation Nest Learning Thermostat as the rest.

You can control the smart thermostat with an app or with your voice if you have a smart speaker like a Google Home or an Amazon Echo. It will also learn your temperature preferences over time and will change the temp for you. Earlier this year, Nest rolled out a temperature sensor for the thermostat to help you adapt your settings to the temperature in a specific room. Note that the cheaper $170 (£199) Nest Thermostat E offers most of the same smarts without the fancy finishes.

Design inspirations

Nest's new finishes look great.

James Martin/CNET

The new thermostats give people "the opportunity to have a gorgeous piece of technology that just really fits into their own unique style," Gunter said. She described the polished steel as "a piece of jewelry for the wall." It's meant to match the design of high-end appliances.

With the brass finish, Nest wanted a warmer tone with classic sensibilities. "There's this piece of wildly modern technology that does absolutely all of the latest things that a thermostat can do," Gunter said. "But it also sort of aesthetically bridges to this 1950s midcentury style for the home."

Finally, with the mirror black, Nest wanted to evoke a grand piano. "A nice choice for any home where people are going with bold pops of color or doing that really high-contrast style." She noted that the finish evoked a sports car.

A closer look

James Martin/CNET

I had a chance to look at the new models up close, and the new colors are distinct and classy, but not so flashy as to be garish. I liked the mirror black in particular, although I'd call it Batman black if I had it in my home.

I appreciate Nest's efforts to give people plenty of style options. Google's taking a similar approach with the different finishes of the Google Home Hub and Google Home Mini. Gunter noted that since the Nest and Google Home teams now work in the same building, they work closely together. As for the relationship between the teams, Gunter called it "a beautiful marriage."

Nevertheless, new Nest finishes don't have quite the same impact as a brand-new Google Home device. Mark Spates, the product lead for smart speakers, also talked positively about the collaboration between Nest and Google, but noted that one of the challenges of having two great teams working together was figuring out how to prioritize everything with "too many awesome things to do."

Maybe it will be Nest's turn to announce a cool new device next. In the meantime, the new colors really do look great if you want your smart thermostat to double as art for your wall.

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